The Rotary Canada - July 2021STAFF EDITOR IN CHIEF John Rezek
ART DIRECTOR Jennifer Moody
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Geoffrey Johnson
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Paul Engleman
ADVISORY BOARD CHAIR Rod Thomson Abbotsford, B.C.
TRUSTEES Nancy E. Gilbert West Shore, B.C.
Roger J. Hayward Alliston, Ont.
Jennifer E. Jones Windsor- Roseland, Ont.
Jacinthe Paillé D7040 Passport, Que.
Dean Rohrs Langley Central, B.C.
VOL. 13, NO. 1
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A s i write this column, I reflect on the fact that I just
completed my 2021 census. I’m also aware that this issue of Rotary
Canada will reach readers around Canada Day, 1 July.
The census data will give us a clearer picture of who lives in our
communities: their ages, education levels,
ethnicities, language preferences, and more. So the question is,
does your Rotary club reflect the census data of your
community?
I know mine does not. In Abbotsford, British Columbia, where I
live, residents of South Asian heritage — primarily Indo-Canadian,
I would guess — comprise about 25 per cent of the town’s
population. Yet there are only a few Indo-Canadians in our Rotary
clubs here. They certainly don’t make up 25 per cent of our
membership.
On Canada Day, we will celebrate our nation from sea to sea as we
always do, with the singing of “O Canada.” At a recent club meeting
we watched a video of people singing our national anthem in 11
languages, including two First Nations languages.
Watching that video prompted my question about diversity, equity,
and inclusion. My experience in Rotary leads me to believe we are
not doing a good job of welcoming people from all walks of life and
backgrounds to our great movement.
So this Canada Day, let’s begin to take action on bringing more
diver- sity, in its myriad forms, to our Rotary clubs. I wager we
will be the better for the effort and will show leadership
throughout Rotary by our actions.
ROD THOMSON Chair, Rotary Canada Advisory Board Rotary Club of
Abbotsford, British Columbia © 2021 by Rotary
International
PHOTO OF THE MONTH
In the Northwest Territories, the Rotary Club of Yellowknife-True
North built a new suspension bridge to a historic cemet- ery. Read
more about the club’s projects, which focus on its city’s past,
present, and future, on page 4.
VIEW FROM THE NORTH
The language of inclusion
JULY 2021 ROTARY CANADA 3
who gets by on a disability pension — chimed in: “You see people
and you feel more a part of the community. Everybody really
appreciates Rotary.”
But it’s not just Rotarians who have rallied around Feed My City.
The city of White Rock stepped in to help, as did Peninsula United
Church, and the Peace Portal Al- liance continues to anchor the
program on Wednesdays. Several restaurants — Bamboo, Red Rose, and
White Rock Indian Flavours, as well as Seriously Good Cater- ing,
which has served the club’s lunches for years — prepared the meals
and provided them at cost, a signifi- cant savings for the program.
To give volunteers some shelter as they distribute food, Premium
Fence and Poco Building Supplies donated materials for a sturdy and
roomy hut, which Premium volunteers custom-built on site over two
days, complete with a Rotary wheel.
Club members — including White Rock Mayor Darryl Walker and
Srinivasan “Raj” Rajagopal, who will serve as the 2022-23 governor
of District 5050 — turn out regularly to staff the hut and
distribute food, as do non-Rotarian volunteers. People have
contributed financially as well. “Donations ranged from a few dol-
lars donated by passersby to $20,000 from a generous local
citizen,” Garrett says. As of the end of March 2021, club members
had donated more than $50,000.
All that bodes well for the program’s longevity, per- haps even
beyond the pandemic. “We can take the ap- proach that all good
things must come to an end,” says Gordy Sangha, the club’s 2021-22
president. “Or we can be determined to continue with Feed My City
until we’ve helped the last person in need. I believe in the lat-
ter course.” May that gate never be closed.
The city of White Rock sits alongside a sandy beach in the
southwest corner of British Columbia. It’s a five-minute drive to
the 100-year-old Peace Arch, a 21-metre, white concrete structure
that straddles the border between Canada and the United States. In-
scribed across the frieze on the U.S. side of the arch are the
words “Children of a Common Mother”; on the Canadian side, the
inscription reads “Brethren Dwelling Together in Unity.” Within the
arch, where iron gates are mounted on its east and west walls, an-
other inscription appears: “May These Gates Never Be Closed.”
Yet when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, it curtailed
travel between the two countries. The impact on White Rock and
nearby South Surrey was immediate, as local restaurants and small
businesses suffered major setbacks and employees lost their jobs.
“Food banks reported vastly increased numbers of families seeking
help,” says George Garrett, a former radio broadcaster and a member
of the Rotary Club of White Rock. “Residents here were not
accustomed to seeing people line up for food.”
A nearby church, the Peace Portal Alliance, began offering free
lunches on Wednesdays. Overwhelmed, it turned to the 50-plus
members of the White Rock club for help. On 21 May 2020, in a
parking lot next door to the local playhouse, club members
distributed 18 brown-bag chicken dinners. It was the beginning of a
club program now known as Feed My City, which cur- rently provides
hot meals to about 50 people, seven days a week. The club estimates
that it served 12,000 meals in the program’s first 10 months, at a
cost of about $5,000 a month.
“People who come for the free hot meals are grate- ful not only for
the food but also for the opportunity to get out of the house and
have someone to talk to,” Gar- rett says. A regular visitor — a
woman named Cynthia
“Food banks reported vastly increased numbers of families seeking
help.”
— George Garrett
FIELD NOTES
Food and fellowship in White Rock
When the pandemic hit a British Columbia town, the entire community
turned out to help
The Rotary Club of White Rock hosted a Christmas celebration at the
Feed My City hut.
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space” — the Dancing Moose Café — “and do something directly to
help the community.”
Those activities include help- ing to prepare special meals at a
residential community centre for seniors and facilitating Tuesday
bingo to ensure that the city’s older residents have opportunities
to so- cialize. Club members built a fire circle for the
Yellowknife Scouts at the Folk on the Rocks festival site on Long
Lake and garden boxes at Mildred Hall School so that stu- dents
could learn how to grow their own food.
In March, following local health rules and recommendations, the
club held its annual soup kitchen event, which offered two choices
of gourmet soup as well as an op- portunity to break down barriers
between residents and the city’s homeless. And in April, club mem-
bers were at the NWT SPCA pet shelter, walking dogs and washing
windows and floors. “We’ve done all this with our time and very
little money,” Kalnay says.
Building a new bridge to Back Bay Cemetery, however, required a
great deal of both commodities. “The need for a new bridge was
identified in 2011 when True North made its first trip to the
cemetery for a hands-on service project to cut the grass there,”
says Kalnay. “The old bridge was about 7 me- tres long, but changes
to permafrost conditions meant that it had heaved up a metre at one
end and was un- der water at the other for much of the summer,
making it impassable and unsafe.”
Work on designing a new bridge began in 2014. “Our first thought
was to replace the old bridge, just a bit higher upstream to get it
out of the water, but we ran into a coyote den at one end,” Kalnay
recalls. “We moved it further upstream, but the stream started to
get too wide to build a bridge without intermediate supports.”
Final plans called for a 20-metre suspension bridge with a steel
superstructure that spanned a ravine filled with groundwater, seep-
age from Jackfish Lake, and runoff
n the northwest Territories, above an inlet of Great Slave Lake, a
se- cluded graveyard sits at the end of a long, wind-
ing trail. Only about 35 bodies are known to be buried there, and
the last one was interred in 1946. Yet for some residents of
Yellowknife, the cemetery remains a vital reposi- tory of the
city’s past. “This place is full of Yellowknife’s history,” says
Michael Kalnay. “It’s where the first pioneers were buried — and
there is plenty of history here yet to be discovered.”
Kalnay is a member of the Rotary Club of Yellowknife-True North,
which has maintained Back Bay Cemetery since 2011: cutting the
grass, trimming the trees, paint- ing the picket fence and wooden
grave markers. And last fall, after six years of planning,
fundraising,
and labor, the club completed its largest project ever:
construction of a 20-metre-long steel suspension bridge to the
cemetery.
According to Kalnay, it was no easy task. “While it’s a long hike
to the cemetery, it’s an even longer road to build a bridge down
there.”
But the club isn’t interested only in Yellowknife’s yesterdays. Its
focus, in fact, is threefold: the past (what Kalnay and other club
members re- fer to as “our heritage”), the present (“our seniors
and local charities”), and the future (“our youth”).
The club takes a particular ap- proach to making an impact in those
three areas. Rather than fo- cusing exclusively on fundraising,
Kalnay explains, “we focus on giv- ing our time to engage directly
in the community. We do this through hands-on projects: Once a
month we abandon our regular meeting
True North projects span space and time
FEATURE
A new bridge is the latest example of one club’s focus on
Yellowknife’s past, present, and future
I
Chief shepherd At the opening ceremony for the bridge, Michael
Kalnay, who led the Rotary Club of Yellowknife-True North project,
unveils a marker with information about people buried at the
cemetery.
4 ROTARY CANADA JULY 2021
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from Yellowknife’s famous ice caves. At the same time, club
members
began collecting stories, from old newspapers and family descen-
dants, about burials at the ceme- tery. The deceased included
Métis, geologists, and prospectors, and the research into their
lives uncovered tales of the mining accidents, ex- plosions, fires,
drownings, and ill- nesses that afflicted them and their
families.
The first known burial — of a prospector named Art McIntyre, who
reportedly died by suicide because he was afraid of working
underground — occurred in Sep- tember 1938, only four years after
the city of Yellowknife was founded. While only about 35 known
burials have been identified at the cemetery, there were likely
more, with some of the gravesites now lost to erosion.
Time’s pastors The new bridge leads to Back Bay Cemetery, where
club members have been cutting the grass, painting the fences and
wooden grave markers, and performing other mainte- nance chores
since 2011.
“Almost half of the graves at the site were burials of
infants who died before their first birthday,” according to a 2015
report by the CBC, which cited research done by an amateur
Yellowknife histo- rian. “Many burials were of young men in
their late teens and early 20s. Only six of the people buried there
reached their 50th birthday.” The club installed
interpretive and historical signage at the cemetery to bring these
stories to life, and the bridge will allow more resi- dents and
tourists to visit the his- toric site while also protecting the
fragile environment that surrounds the graveyard.
Local businesses, the city of Yellowknife, and city residents —
including members of the Rotary Club of Yellowknife — pitched in to
construct the new bridge. In
JULY 2021 ROTARY CANADA 5
the end, they donated $130,000 in cash, goods, or services (with
$15,000 of that coming from the True North club) and 1,200 hours of
volunteer labour. For instance, the Acasta HeliFlight company
airlifted beams and seven tons of riprap rocks to the remote site,
while Kalnay credits Wayne Guy of Guy Architects and Engineers with
making the club’s vision a reality. “Volunteer effort turned the
rock, the wood, and the steel into a thing of beauty,” Kalnay
says.
Construction on the new bridge began in 2019. Due to the timing of
the work’s start date and Yellow- knife’s climate, much of the work
was done during freezing tempera- tures of -15°C to
-30°C. Rotarians and other volunteers spent almost a year
lifting riprap into place, cutting and nailing in the wooden planks
to create the bridge’s walkway, and installing chain-link fencing
along the bridge’s edges.
After the sponsor signs were hung, the grass was mowed, and the
finishing touches were made, a grand opening ceremony for the
bridge was held on 17 September 2020 — almost 83 years to the day
since the first recorded burial at the cemetery. And in December,
dur- ing a surprise outdoor ceremony broadcast live on Facebook,
club members — having made a dona- tion to The Rotary Foundation in
Kalnay’s name — presented Kalnay with Paul Harris Fellow
recognition, honoring him as the “ringleader, chief shepherd, and
master plan- ner” for the bridge project.
Though they do not have an- other big service project planned for
the cemetery, the True North club will continue to do its part to
improve the present, plan for the future, and preserve one of
Yellowknife’s most important heritage sites. “True North is all
about building bridges,” Kalnay says. “Some are literal, like the
one to the cemetery, and some are figurative, such as cooking meals
and organizing events to bring together different groups” — and
different times. — alice twaFr
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T amara larson grew up in Edmonton in the 1970s. She recalls how
whenever she saw an injustice — bullying
on the school playground, for in- stance, or images of refugees
fleeing a war-torn country — she would protest to her father that
it didn’t seem fair. His reply: “Life’s not fair.”
But that was never the end of the conversation, only its beginning.
Her mother, a teacher, and her father, a Rotarian and the owner of
a com- mercial excavation business, taught her that she had the
power to change things. “The word ‘can’t’ was not in our
vocabulary,” Larson says. “We were taught that you can do whatever
you want, if you put your mind to it. If there’s no door there,
build one.”
Larson went on to earn a bach- elor’s degree in music and French
from the University of Alberta and a master’s in curriculum and
instruc- tion from St. Xavier University in Chicago — and music
remains one of her passions. “Music is a universal language,” she
says. “Music can tell
stories and express things that words alone cannot.”
While working as an education consultant, Larson focused on cur-
riculum development and youth lead- ership training. In 2001,
looking for more opportunities to explore her interest in youth
engagement and human rights, she became a char- ter member of the
Rotary Club of Northern Lights in Edmonton. Her husband’s career
then took them away from and finally back to Ed- monton; today
Larson is a member of the Rotary Club of Edmonton Whyte Avenue. “I
joined Rotary because I wanted to make a difference,” she says. “I
stayed because I am.”
Larson served as Whyte Avenue’s president for two terms; during her
tenure, the club’s membership near- ly doubled. “We are far from
your traditional club,” she says. “Mem- bership has always been
close to 50 per cent female, and we have a young, diverse, and
inclusive demo- graphic. We were truly trailblazers in the world of
Rotary.”
Larson also built on a strategic
plan initiated by Jackie Hobal, the 2010-11 governor of District
5370, for increasing youth participation in Rotary. At one time,
the district had a single Rotaract club and 11 Interact clubs.
Today it has 10 Rotaract and 35 Interact clubs, and Larson
estimates that 1,500 young leaders have partici- pated in Rotary
programs.
When Laura Morie became the district’s governor in 2016, she asked
Larson to join her board as youth chair; Larson later served for
more than three years as the district’s youth services chair. “The
key to our benchmark programs is the premise of youth leading
youth,” says Larson. “We developed a district mentorship program
where Interactors are men- tored by Rotaractors, and Rotaractors
are mentored by Rotarians.” The dis- trict’s Rotary Youth
Leadership Ex- perience focuses on interpersonal leadership skills;
as the district’s website explains, the high school stu- dents who
participate “learn how to be active citizens who strive to make a
positive impact in the world.”
Larson is also pursuing her inter- est in human rights,
collaborating with Rotarian peace advocates in District 5550, which
encompasses Manitoba and parts of Ontario and Saskatchewan. In
partnership with the University of Winnipeg, the Ca- nadian Museum
for Human Rights, and Rotary District 5550 World Peace Partners,
she chairs a program called Emerging Issues in Human Rights at the
university. She is also the pro- gram director for an annual
weeklong summer youth program at the muse- um, also located in
Winnipeg, called Rotary Adventures in Human Rights.
In recognition of her efforts, Lar- son was honoured as District
5370’s Rotarian of the Year in June 2018; in 2020 she was appointed
to Rotary International’s Leadership Develop- ment and Training
Committee. “As Rotarians, when we work together, we embrace our
differences, learn from each other, and create an en- vironment
that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive,” she says. “Our job is
to open doors, remove barriers, and give young people the
opportunity to learn, grow, and have an impact. Young leaders are
truly invested in creating change that is happening now and will
create a better world tomorrow.” — paul engleman
PROFILE
A youth leader for the ages
“We were taught that you can do whatever you want, if you put your
mind to it,” says Tamara Larson, recalling her childhood in
Edmonton. “If there’s no door there, build one.”
6 ROTARY CANADA JULY 2021
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L e 15 SEPTEMBRE 2021, le Club Rotary de Hull a tenu sa première
réunion non officielle. Il a reçu sa charte deux mois plus tard; le
parrain du club a été le Club Rotary d’Ottawa, et son premier
prési-
dent était George Doyon, un dirigeant d’assurance. Le club a
célébré avec un banquet de charte le 22 Février 1922.
En 2021, le Club Rotary de Hull, Québec, célèbre une fois de plus —
et pas seulement son centenaire. L’année dernière, notre ami Edmond
Lanthier a fêté ses 50 ans en tant que membre du club. C’est tout
un exploit qui mérite d’être souligné.
Edmond Lanthier est né à Ottawa en 1934. Il a fait ses études
supérieures à Hull. Par la suite, il a fréquenté le Collège
militaire royal de Saint-Jean et l’Université d’Ottawa où il
obtient un baccalauréat en commerce en 1959. Il se voit décerner le
titre de comptable agréé en 1962. En 1982, il poursuit des cours en
pédagogie et en administration des affaires (MBA) de l’Université
du Québec à Montréal.
Professeur et homme d’affaires, Edmond a en- seigné divers sujets
reliés à la gestion et à la compt- abilité à plusieurs niveaux
scolaire – secondaire, technique, collégial et universitaire. Il a
pratiqué l’expertise comptable en cabinet et individuellement
durant 14 ans. Il a aussi été concessionnaire en ti- tre de deux
concessions d’automobiles pendant une dizaine d’années.
Engagé dans la communauté, Edmond a servi avec dévotion dans
plusieurs organismes caritative et économique. Mais parmi ces
organismes, le cœur d’Edmond avait ses préférés : le Rotary
et la Ligue des cadets de l’Air du Canada (Québec et Vallée de
l’Outaouais).
Edmond s’est joint au Club Rotary de Hull en 1970. Dès lors, ses
collègues rotariens ont vite réalisé que cette nouvelle recrue
démontrait une grande mo- tivation pour les activités du club. Il
gagne la confi- ance de ses compères; il est choisi pour servir
comme trésorier. À plusieurs reprises, il occupe la chaise du
président. Il donne de son temps sans compter pour toutes les
activités du club, tant au niveau social qu’au niveau
caritatif.
Non seulement Edmond se veut un précieux ac- tif pour le club de
Hull, il s’intéresse et s’implique au niveau du district. Il
s’engage activement comme représentant du gouverneur auprès des
autres clubs. Il participe à plusieurs comités du district — bourse
ambassadoriale, échanges de groupes d’études, Rotaract, finances,
législation, mentor à la fonda- tion, Polio Plus — tout en
apportant son support à d’autres clubs.
C’est donc sans surprise qu’on le retrouve à deux reprises
(l995-1996 et 2007-2008) Gouverneur du District 7040. Il a aussi
servi le District 7040 comme chef d’une mission d’échange de
groupes d’études en France en 1993. Il a représenté le district au
Conseil de législation à Chicago en 2004 et en 2007.
Je ne peux mentionner dans ce texte toutes les ac- tions posées par
notre ami Edmond pour faire avanc- er le Rotary et ses œuvres au
cours des 50 dernières années. Veuillez me croire, il y en a eu
plusieurs.
En 1962, Edmond a pris pour épouse Suzie Bour- cier. Au cours de sa
carrière de 26 ans, elle a enseigné à des enfants atteints de
déficience mentale. Suzie et Edmond n’ont pas eu d’enfants, mais
ils ont consacré leur vie à l’amélioration de la condition de vie
des personnes infortunées et défavorisées.
Servir d’abord, la devise du Rotary, résume bien le parcours
d’Edmond et de Suzie. Edmond a été et est toujours un fier et
valeureux Rotarien.
NOTES DE TERRAIN
Au Québec, célébrant
par Jean-Guy St-Arnaud, Club Rotary de Hull
« Engagé dans la communauté, Edmond a servi avec dévotion
dans
plusieurs organismes caritatives. »
Edmond Lanthier est membre du Club Rotary de Hull, vieux de 100
ans, depuis 51 ans.
JULY 2021 ROTARY CANADA 7
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Your Legacy, Rotary’s Promise
Your annual gifts to The Rotary Foundation are helping people
around the globe live better lives today.
Planning a gift to Rotary’s Endowment supports these same
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Learn how the next century of service begins with your Rotary
legacy at rotary.org/legacy.
FEATURE
PROFILE
NOTES DE TERRAIN